Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Johnny 5's Unfortunate Friend

1988 Johnny 5 returned to the big screen in his second film Short Circuit 2. This was another wacky adventure from the 80s with suspense, humor, and even a teary eye every now and then. Although the movie is based on a robots, Johnny 5, adventure through New York City, the character I would like to point out is that of his Indian sidekick Benjamin Jahrvi. Jahrvi is a street toy salesmen who sells these tiny robots that he makes by hand. Ben gets into a bit of a sticky situation and the adventure for him begins. Although he is smart enough to build his own tiny robotic toys, Ben is not smart enough to know when he is being taken advantage of by a loan shark. Unfortunately this Indian man was no Indian at all. Much like the actors of the early twenties portraying “blackface”, Fisher Stevens did used the same kind of movie magic to turn from white to Indian. Not many people noticed this at first, except one rather famous Indian himself later on in life. 

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